ISLAMABAD, Nov 23: The parliamentary board of Pakistan Muslim League finalised on Friday names of its candidates for 109 of the 148 general seats of the National Assembly from Punjab.

The list does not include the name of former prime minister Shaukat Aziz, who has not applied for a party ticket so far.

Sources said that Mr Aziz wanted to contest from Kashmore in Sindh, but prominent politician Maqbool Sheikh has applied for the seat.

Mr. Sheikh told Dawn: “I will be the second choice if the ticket is allotted to Mr. Aziz”.

PML president Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain is likely to contest from NA 59. His niece Eman Wasim had won the seat in 2002 and later vacated it for Mr Aziz.

The sources said it was difficult for the parliamentary board to finalise the list of all candidates in three days. The board was finding it hard to pick suitable candidates for most of the remaining constituencies.

No ticket has been allotted for the two seats of Islamabad district which were won by the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal and Pakistan People’s Party in the last election.

The party was not able to take a decision on the seats with stronger opposition candidates.

Former minister Dr Sher Afgan Niazi, a staunch supporter of Gen. Musharraf, has not been allotted a ticket. He wants to contest as an independent candidate as he had done in the past.

Former minister of state Hina Rabbani Khar has also been ignored and Khalid Gurmani has been elected for NA 177. Malik Allahyar, the Public Accounts Committee Chairman, is said to have applied for his son because he himself was not keeping good health.

No decision was taken for the NA 69 seat which Sumaira Malik, a former minister, had won in the previous polls.

No candidate has been selected for various seats which had been won by prominent opposition leaders. These include NA 124, Lahore, won by Aitzaz Ahsan of the PPP, NA 123, Lahore, by Javed Hashmi of PML(N), NA 71, Mianwali, by Imran Khan of Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf, and NA 126 by Liaquat Baloch of MMA.

Nominations were also not made in the constituencies of former federal ministers Wasi Zafar and Zahid Hamid, former ministers of state Umar Ghuman and Ali Asjad Malhi and Maj (retd) Tanvir Hussain, Faiz Tamman, Ishaq Khakwani and Nauraiz Shakoor.

Meanwhile, the PPP has finalised its candidates from Sindh while party chairperson Benazir Bhutto was still chairing a meeting to finalise the lists from Punjab, the NWFP and Balochistan.

Talking to Dawn, PPP spokesperson Farhatullah Babar said the remaining names of candidates from the three provinces, as well as for minorities and women seats, might be released by Saturday evening.